The West Wing: Season 5 (2003-2004)

This is the season after Sorkin left the show as head writer and producer, and well you can feel it. I had remembered the show as gliding better into season 5 after that wonderful season 4 cliff hanger and the plot about the first daughters kidnaping that Sorkin had so graciously left upon his successors. That hand off didn’t seem as strong on second viewing, linking it more firmly in my mind with the rest of the season, a season that at best showed a significant learning curve for the new writers, and at worst almost killed the show. Witness the White House’s funk after the immediate resolution of the Zoe situation: While understandable and dramatically logical, it was executed in such away, with this once loving cadre now depressed and grating on each others nerves, that superfan that I am I don’t know if I could have kept watching had that overbearing and depressing moodiness continued a few more episodes then it did. Of course there are some standout’s that are about as good as anything that had come before, the government shutdown episode, the supreme court episodes, and maybe a couple of other less arc-heavy ventures, but on the all... This really became another show, but then again second terms are generally not as pleasant as first, Nixon had Watergate, Reagan Iran-Contra, Clinton Impeachment, and Bush just a general all fronts fatigue. So I can buy Bartlett getting tired, frustrated, and feeling like he’s just treading water, but that’s just not as fun to watch as the programs earlier idealism. Post Sorkin West Wing is better then no West Wing, but in season 5 sometimes not by much. 3 out of 5.

Note: Chronology problem in the early season 5 episodes in which what should really be just a few weeks worth of events gets played as though it were a month or more. A much bigger chronology problem developed in the writers room between seasons 5 and 6, when it was decided to move things up a year yet no break in the action was provided to make this at all logical. The mid term elections are completely skipped, despite being referenced as up and coming towards the end of this season. I hate chronology problems because they’d be so easy to fix if people just paid attention, and they totally take me out of the story, I’m a stickler for internal logic.